July 30-August 5, 2023

Weather | 7/30, 65°, 93° | 7/31, 65°, 85° | 8/1, 65°, 87° | 8/2, 1.31" rain, 69°, 77° | 8/4, mist, 69°, 81° | 8/5, 0.02" rain, 67°, 84° | 8/5, 1.34" rain, 66°, 77° | 

• Sunday, 7/30: Making Cherry Wine
  
  • Bill and I made a five-gallon batch of cherry wine. Bill juiced a 1.5 bags of mandarin oranges to put 30 ounces of juice into the brew bucket. I put 22 bags, or 17 pounds, 1.2 ounces of cherries into a mesh bag. Bill grated the zest of two oranges into the bag. He also added pulp from juicing the mandarins. He measured 1 gram of Kmeta into the brew bucket. I added five teaspoons of yeast nutrient, a cup of strong tea (2 teabags), seven pounds of sugar, and 3.5 gallons of water. The specific gravity was 1.076, which depending on the ending specific gravity getting to the 0.992 reading of the last cherry wine batch, would result in about 11 percent alcohol. The pH was 3.0, or highly acidic, just like the last batch we made. We covered the brew bucket and let it rest overnight in the pantry.
    
  • Mary did a little bit of cross stitching.
  • We all watered the gardens. While stepping over the near garden fence, I tripped and came down hard. An old watering can took the main brunt of the fall and broke out the bottom.
  • I went inside and ordered two more plastic watering cans through Home Depot. When we last ordered them in 2018, they were $8, each. Today, they cost $20, each. Now that's major inflation.
    
  • After evening chores, I hooked up the electric fence to the Esopus apple tree, since I found a partially eaten apple under it today.
    
  • After dark, we played the Sorry! board game and drank a 1.5 liter bottle of apple wine (see photo, below). This wine smells great, but has a distinct metallic taste and quite a bit of fines floating in it. We suspect I used too much Kmeta as a preservative while grinding up the apples. I also think the old-fashioned meat grinder contributed to the taste. Future apple wine preparation will involve lemon juice for a preservative and a food processor for grinding up the apples. We'll just suffer through this poor-tasting wine and make better apple wine in the future.

  

  2022 apple wine looks and smells great, but lacks good taste.

• Monday, 7/31: Bill Returns
  
  • After building an outside little fire, we cooked up smoked eggs for our midday meal. We also had slightly thawed watermelon, which is like a frozen dessert in the summer. The meal was topped off by the last of Bill's birthday pistachio tort.
    
  • Mary picked bent-over onions, which amounts to about 10 a day. She also picked several zucchinis, and a couple handfuls of tomatoes.
  • Bill left for his apartment in St. Charles around 2:30 p.m. Tomorrow he starts working shifts from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. It will be better hours during the intense summer heat. On the way home, he got an appointment at a Hyundai dealer to get better anti-theft ignition installed on his car and get an emissions test, which is required in St. Charles County.
  • I added 2.5 teaspoons of pectic enzyme to the cherry wine. I'll work up and pitch the yeast tomorrow.
    
  • I saw a huge kettle of turkey vultures circling to the southwest of our house. There must have been about 20 vultures in it. Mary and I also saw two two bald eagles circling above our house.
    
  • We did the water, water, watering dance through the gardens, a daily event.
    
  • Tonight's full moon rising to the southeast was big and amazing (see photo, below). During our nighttime dog walk, we didn't need a flashlight. It was so bright, you could detect colors. We watched two or three bats flying between us as we stood midway down the lane, looking at the moon.

  

  Full moon framed by Empire apples.

• Tuesday, 8/1: Solved Wine Particulate Issue
  
  • While feeding our furry kids (cats & dogs), the twin deer fawns showed up in the north yard and munched on grass and weeds (see photo, below). Their mother was nearby. These deer are regulars in our yard.
  • Suspecting that particulates in wine are due to pectin-laden fruit, I checked original recipes of apple and cherry wines and sure enough, more amounts of pectic enzyme is called for in these wines. Instead of the usual half teaspoon per gallon, cherry wine recipes call for 3/4 teaspoon per gallon of pectic enzyme. So, I added another teaspoon and a quarter to the current cherry wine batch. I worked up a starter batch of Red Star Côte des Blancs wine yeast, adding heated cherry wine must to it throughout the day. Prior to pitching the yeast, I measure the specific gravity. It dropped to 1.073, but I didn't add any additional sugar, since the alcohol level should reach 10 percent, which is fine. The liquid has a nice cherry aroma.
  • Mary harvested 20-30 onions and some tomatoes.
  • We decided not to water the gardens or fruit trees, since we have a 100 percent chance of rain overnight and it was overcast for most of today.
  • We watched two movies, the 2010 film, Secretariat, and the 2004 movie, Elle Enchanted. The first movie was really good. The second one is mindless nonsense, but fun.

  

  The fawn twins that we see regularly in our yard.

• Wednesday, 8/2: A Nice Rain
  
  • We received a steady rain overnight and today. At almost an inch and a third, it was the most rain in one day so far this year.
  • A news article from yesterday indicates that the local corn crop is probably shot, even with today's expected rain.
    
  • Since it was wet outside, we declared today a hobby day.
  • Mary cross stitched and finished a Halloween ornament called Raven Moon (see photo, below).
  • I worked on leather and stamped the border of the checkbook cover.
  • I sorted my leather tools, put like tools together and rubber banded each variety. I placed tools into two heavy duty basket containers, so I can easily grab them for future leatherwork. In the process, I tossed a bunch of junk, including several bicycle lights.
  • Cherry wine yeast is bubbling nicely (see photo, below). After squeezing the mesh bag and stirring the must, the specific gravity checked out at 1.069. It smells marvelous, like cherry bread.
    
  • We had a bottle of 2021 autumn olive wine. It was very good. This wine's flavor is best at room temperature. Taste vastly improves on wine after it's aged beyond one year from bottling.
  • Two apples were under each of the Empire and Esopus trees. We tried the Empire apples. The seeds are dark, which indicates ripeness. They're still green, but getting close to ripe. They tasted good. I bet by mid-month they will be ready to pick.

Mary's Raven Moon cross stitch ornament.

Cherry wine with nice yeast action.

• Thursday, 8/3: Bill's Birthday
  
  • It's Bill's 30th birthday, today.
    
  • A young fawn with lots of spots ran past the Buick Park Avenue this morning. Our place is a deer nursery.
    
  • Mary processed recently picked zucchinis into 27 bags for the freezer to be used in future venison General Tso dishes. Plato was by her side while she chopped zucchinis. He loves them and gobbled up any accidents that hit the floor.
    
  • Mary picked several tomatillos and tomatoes from the garden.
    
  • She found two baby bunnies in the north end of the far garden and chased them up and down the rows in what she called a rabbit rodeo. She eventually caught both of them and hauled them off to almost the end of our lane before letting them free.
    
  • I used the Stihl trimmer and whacked down weeds and grass under and near the electrical wires of the near garden.
  • The cherry wine's specific gravity was 1.040, a huge drop in just 11 hours from yesterday's reading of 1.069. By midnight, it was 1.021. The yeast was bubbling so much it turned the must hot, to 80°. I squeezed the bag and racked the wine into a 6.5-gallon carboy. Foam instantly formed on top, so I yanked the airlock and installed a blow-off airlock system emptying the CO2 release into a Mason jar partially filled with water (see video, below). I left this arrangement in the pantry overnight.
    
  • When we walked the dogs on their final night outing, a screech owl sounded off from the north yard.
  Cherry wine's CO2 release is like a galloping horse.
  

• Friday, 8/4: Another Big Rain
  
  • I drove to Quincy to pick up two watering cans we ordered into Home Depot. There was also a meat sale at HyVee, where I bought pork loin for $1.69 a pound. I got a couple other items and headed back home. While I was gone a light rain went through.
    
  • Mary took the ficus tree to the woods. It outgrew the sunroom, making it hard to even enter through the doorway or between it and the table. Mary has clippings from it growing nicely in a pot. This tree started before I knew Mary as a plant in her Kirksville apartment in 1989 when she was working on her master's degree in English at Truman State (then called Northeast Missouri State University). Mary's been renewing the ficus tree ever since then.
    
  • Mary also picked onions and trimmed branches in the lane that grew to where they were rubbing on the pickup as we drove by them.
    
  • As we went to put the chickens to bed, we spotted the deer twins in the yard next to the woodshed. One stood there and stared at us for several minutes.
    
  • I picked up a couple hands full of apples that fell under the Empire and Esopus trees.
  • We watched four episodes of Keeping Up Appearances.
  • After turning off the TV, a close crack of thunder made us jump and unplug appliances. We let the dogs out during a lull in rain, then it really poured. We got another dump of over an inch of rain, which is great.
    
  • We saw in local news that a tornado touched down at Baring, MO, which is about 35 miles northwest of us. HERE are photos from a Kirksville TV station.
    
    
• Saturday, 8/5: Moving Furniture
  
  • I helped Mary move a tall cabinet that she uses to store cross stitch projects from the west room to the sunroom. The reason for the move is the floor is sinking in the west room and the sunroom has a concrete floor. The heavy cabinet will do better in the new location.
  • The cherry wine quit foaming and settled down to a burp every 19 seconds. This is a big difference from yesterday morning, when I changed the blow-off airlock to a regular airlock, because the sound of CO2 blowing through a quart Mason jar of water every second was akin to Chinese water torture.
    
  • Mary froze several tomatillos, tomatoes, and a sliced-up pork loin.
  • I picked up apples from under the Empire tree throughout the day. It probably means they are ripe.
  • Mary picked more tomatoes in the garden. Cooler temperatures and lots of rain this week put a huge boost to garden plants.
    
  • We saw our daily complement of deer...the twins and their mama, along with a different doe and her her older fawn that were down the lane.
  • We watched the 2003 movie, Under the Tuscan Sun.
  • The weather service says the tornado in Baring, MO, was an EF-2, with 122 mph winds that touched down for two miles. It went right down the main street of Baring, a population of 124. Fortunately, only two people were injured and nobody was killed.
    

July 23-29, 2023

Weather | 7/23, 63°, 91° | 7/24, 64°, 90° | 7/25, 0.03" rain, 67°, 93° | 7/26, 76°, 98° | 7/27, 75°, 100° | 7/28, 75°, 101° | 7/29, 70°, 93° | 

• Sunday, 7/23: Deer & More Deer
  
  • When we let the dogs outside for their morning walk, Plato scared two or three deer away from the east yard. He walked back very proud of himself. He did his duty!
    
  • I started the mushroom kits that Katie gave me. It will be interesting to see what comes of them.
    
  • We watered all garden plants at midday. There were a lot of wilted leaves at roughly 90 degrees.
    
  • I never could find any online information on how to release the spring to reattach the hood hinge on the pickup, so I ordered a USB stick drive of a GMC Sierra 2000-2006 Factory Repair Manual. It was only $17.
    
  • A buck deer with growing velvet-covered antlers walked to the Empire apple tree in the evening and got interested in what was growing under it (see photos, below). I finally scared it away so it wouldn't start eating apples.
    
  • We noticed several monarch butterflies today. We think it's from a new hatch off the hundreds of milkweed plants on our property.
    
  • I killed several more Japanese beetles. They filled the Virginia creeper surrounding our main door. There were fewer on the fruit trees.

Buck deer close to the Empire apple tree.

Looking into tree before I chased it away.

• Monday, 7/24: Mowing & Whacking
  
  • I sharpened the mower blade and then Mary mowed the lane. Stalky chicory plants growing in the lane meant she had to pass over them several times to mow them down, so it took longer to mow the lane. She was feeling tough after that job.
    
  • I used the steel blade and whacked tall weeds and grass growing under and around fruit trees. The new harness makes the job so much easier. And the Stihl trimmer fitted with a steel blade slices right through thick thistles and persimmon saplings. I still need to clean up under the Esopus tree, then use the string attachment to trim close to fence posts and cattle panels.
    
  • It was rather warmish working outside, but nowhere near as hot as the 102° that Mom said was predicted for Circle, MT.
  • Mary saw both the male and the female summer tanager near the east end of the machine shed. She said that the male is so much brighter than male cardinals.
  • I read an article in the July 2023 issue of Missouri Dept. of Conservation's (MDC) Missouri Conservationist magazine about their master naturalist program. HERE is the article. It's a volunteer program where you go through a summer training session, then through a local chapter, you work at delivering natural resource education and community service. Projects include milkweed for monarchs, assisting with collecting data about chronic wasting disease in deer, invasive plant management, stream conservation, furbearer species surveying, eagle watch, bird surveys, and dark sky promotion. I emailed the MDC contact for the Hannibal chapter to ask how to join. She put me on a list for training that starts after Memorial Day of 2024. It sounds interesting.
    
    
• Tuesday, 7/25: Fire Blight in Esopus Trunk
  
  • Mary watered garden plants twice. They are doing well. She also harvested some cherry tomatoes and hot peppers.
    
  • I whacked weeds under the Esopus and McIntosh apple trees, which took one tank of gas.
    
  • There were gobs of Japanese beetles in the Esopus tree, so I put several bottles of Dawn/water solution into the tree and killed hundreds of bugs. They kept flying in and settling on new growth. The numbers of Japanese beetles in other trees weren't so bad. I think once you've killed a bunch of them in one tree, they avoid the tree.
    
  • While spraying, I noticed that the Esopus trunk bark has turned black, which means the fire blight that killed more than 50 percent of the Esopus branches has settled into the main trunk of the tree. It means the tree is doomed. I'll have to take it down at a later date. The spring hail that fell three times probably contributed to all of the fire blight damage we received.
  • Small cherry tree leaves are turning yellow and dropping. The continuous heat is hard on trees this year.
    
  • We received a short rain right at the end of evening chores.
  • The chicks are big enough to determine sex and chicken varieties (see photos, below). We have three pullets in this year's chicks. The rest (25) are cockerels. Twenty chicks are Buff Orpingtons, as are two of the pullets. Two chicks are Barred Rocks. Two chicks are Delawares. They're white with black markings on the wings and tails. Two chicks are White Plymouth Rocks and one of these is a pullet. She's a very big girl. These are all-white birds. Finally, two chicks are Rhode Island Reds.

Chicks (l to r) a Rhodie, the White Rock pullet,
a Delaware, and a Buff Orpington's butt.

Six-week old chicks (l to r) the Rhode Island Red,
a Buff Orpington, a Delaware, and a Barred Rock.

• Wednesday, 7/26: It's HOT, HOT, HOT
  
  • When we let the chicks outside, close to five jumped on a cedar branch growing through the fence. A couple kept climbing until they were almost to the top of the fence. Much more of that and they could easily hop over the fence. So, I sawed those three cedar branches and eliminated their natural perch.
    
  • With excessive outside temperatures just two degrees shy of 100, we stayed inside as much as possible.
  • Mary watered garden plants for 4-5 hours, today...so much for staying inside! Most plants were wilting, but they looked fine by sundown and they're all growing.
  • The GMC pickup repair manual I ordered still hasn't shipped, and I need to drive to Quincy tomorrow for one medication I'll use up tonight, so I did further online research on connecting the pickup's hood hinge. I was attempting to bolt it to the wrong side of the connector at the hood. I removed the entire hinge, loosely connected the top bolt, then simultaneously lifted the hood and connected the bottom bolt. It's back in place. YAHOO!
    
  • I changed the trimmer to the string attachment and cleaned up weeds next to fence posts and inside enclosures under the Granny, Empire, Esopus, and Grimes apple trees. With handheld trimmers, I cleaned up grass next to the trunks of these trees.
  • I found five apples under Empire, two of which were intact. I cut one up and we tried it. The apple was still green, but the seeds were brown, a sign that it's ripening. It was tart to the taste buds.
    
  • I squirted Japanese beetles after sunset. The main concentrations were on Virginia creeper leaves surrounding the main entrance to our house and on Esopus.
    
    
• Thursday, 7/27: Triple Digit Heat
  • Our thermometer hit 100 today. I saw 101 in Quincy, IL.
  • I drove to Quincy and got a couple meds and a few other items, including cherry winemaking ingredients. Our neighbor's corn is gray with dried up leaves. I don't think it will amount to much. New pavement is on State Highway 156, which is much needed. Black parking lots in Quincy were really hot.
  • Mary harvested about a dozen large onions. They all had bent-over tops. These are the largest onions we've ever grown. More are on the way.
    
  • Mary said wilting garden plants looked bad when she started watering mid-afternoon. She gave them large volumes of water. At one point, she turned around and watched muskmelon leaves rustling and standing upright as they filled with water. She said she's never seen it happen so quickly. By sundown, all plants looked very good. After I got back from Quincy, I helped Mary with the watering chore.
  • Katie told her mother that she sprained her ankle about a month ago. She added that she can count on one hand when temperatures in Anchorage went above 70.
  • There are no ticks on our dogs. I guess it's too hot for even a tick. Actually, it's probably too hot for deer to go marching up, down, and across our lane, thereby dropping ticks off while they're munching grass.
    
    
• Friday, 7/28: 101° With a Wind
  
  • We reached 101°. Southwest wind gusts to 25 mph made it even dryer. We held off on watering gardens, but it didn't make much difference. When we started at 6 p.m., it was 99°. While Mary watered garden plants, I watered all cherry trees and the large apple trees. Each large tree received eight two-gallon cans of water. We're seeing brown leaves on oaks in the woods west of the house. This is awful for wild plants and trees.
  • In texts with Bill, he said his car thermometer at work read 104°, today.
  • The two loads of laundry Mary hung out on the line dried extremely fast.
  • Mary harvested more tomatoes and onions. She saw a two-inch watermelon starting to develop, along with several more smaller ones on the same vine.
    
  • The buck deer featured in photos this Sunday was at the far garden when Mary first ventured there with two watering cans. She said its antlers are much longer. When I got mail after the sun set, the doe and her twins were just beyond Bluegill Pond and on the lane.
    
    
• Saturday, 7/29: Bill Visits
  
  • Mary made the bed in the upstairs north bedroom for Bill and Plato immediately started wagging his tail, ran downstairs, and looked for Bill. He stayed at the door until Bill arrived.
    
  • I changed the Stihl trimmer to the metal blade and whacked down chicory spikes growing in the middle of the lane so that Bill's low-slung car could drive over them easier. Midway through the job, I looked up and there was Bill. He'd been waiting for about a minute before I looked up.
    
  • I picked some lettuce for topping on venison fajitas created by Mary, which were marvelous.
  • Mary harvested a few more onions.
    
  • Mary also made a pistachio tort. We ate part of it and gave presents to Bill for an early birthday celebration. His 30th birthday is actually on August 3rd. Since he won't be here, we're celebrating his birthday early.
  • A storm system moved in from the northwest, divided prior to reaching us, went through us without much more than two drops of rain, then grow bigger after it moved on. The same system knocked out power in St. Louis. Bill got a voice mail that power was out for his apartment. It was still out late at night, but restored sometime after we went to bed.
    
  • Bill, Mary, and I watered gardens. Actually, I watered all small apple trees, the blueberries, the pear trees, along with the Grimes Golden and the Esopus apple trees. A close inspection of the large Bartlett pear tree shows no fire blight signs on the truck, even though branch tips were hit hard. That's better than Esopus, which is thoroughly infected by fire blight.
  • I looked for Japanese beetles. There weren't many.
  • Mary found ripe grapes alongside the pole holding the rain gauge (see photos, below). We all tried them. They taste really good, but are filled with seeds. These wild grapes are really tiny.
    
  • Bill picked out and we watched the 1997 movie, Contact.

Tiny wild grapes.

Bill spitting out grape seeds. Amber is in background.

July 16-22, 2023

Weather | 7/16, 65°, 83° | 7/17, 0.03"rain, 61°, 75° | 7/18, 62°, 85° | 7/19, 63°, 89° | 7/20, 72°, 87° | 7/21, 56°, 81° | 7/22, 0.02" rain, 56°, 85° | 

• Sunday, 7/16: Done Pickin', &We're Grinin'
  
  • Mary and I picked blackberries between the ponds and in the Bramble Hill patches to get a few ounces over the 20 pounds we need for making blackberry wine. We are done!
  • Deer, including our pet mama doe and her two fawns, were in our east yard this morning. A deer left when I let the dogs out for their morning walk. I caught glimpses of it through the brush and think it was a buck. I clapped my hands to send off the doe and her two fawns. One fawn is losing its spots.
  • Smoke is in the air again today.
    
  • We enjoyed inside stuff for the rest of the day. I spent time online while Mary did some cross stitching.
  • To celebrate the end of blackberry picking, we shared a bottle of 2022 Kieffer pear wine (see photo, below). It is six months old from when I bottled it in January. The wine tastes marvelous. It starts out with a real tang on the tongue and the secondary taste is heavy on the pear flavor. This is a very excellent wine and better than Bartlett pear wine.
  • In the evening, I heard the squawk of a great heron. The sound kept getting louder. Then I watched it fly by, going south to north, but kept hearing the heron call further south. Then, a second heron flew by, much lower to the ground. It was squawking at the first heron. Next, I watched the first heron take a 90-degree turn to the east. The second heron followed. I think they spotted Wood Duck Pond and settled there for the night.
    
  • During our nighttime dog walk, distant lightning flashes pulsated through the sky. It involved storms south of us along the I-70 corridor, which is about 100 miles away. It's amazing how far lightning is seen at night.

  

  Kieffer pear wine tastes very good.

• Monday, 7/17: Big Scare With Amber
  
  • Mary and I cleaned house, a neglected activity during the blackberry picking realm.
    
  • We had a scare with Amber. In the afternoon, she suffered an extremely blown up muzzle. She looked like a chow. Large welts were all over her body. She was having an extreme allergy attack. Mary gave her a generic Benedryl tablet hidden in shredded cheese. Mary worked at calming her and at one point Amber wasn't breathing. We got through that. An online search to a vet website indicated Amber could get two Benedryl tablets, based on her weight, so Mary gave her another one. Through the night, she slowly got better. We stayed up with her until 1 a.m., eight hours after her last Benedryl, and gave her two more.
  • In searching the dog bed upstairs, I found an assassin bug in the folds of the blanket. That's what bit Amber and caused her allergic reaction. Amber likes to root the blanket into a big wad and then lay on the mound. We're sure she stuffed her nose right into that bug and got bit. I shook out all blankets and will do so regularly from now on.
    
  • In the waning evening daylight, Mary and I sprayed Japanese beetles eating on apple and cherry tree leaves. We sprayed two gallons of Dawn/water solution and killed a vast number of bugs.
  • We watched the 2018 movie, Christopher Robin. It's a good one. The voice actor for Eeyore is Brad Garrett, who played the really tall brother in the TV show, Everyone Loves Raymond. He has the perfect voice for Eeyore, who both Mary and I find as the best Winnie-the-Pooh character. What does that say for us?!!!
    
    
• Tuesday, 7/18: Amber is Back to Normal
  
  • Canadian smoke left us. We just have the normal July humid air.
  • Amber is back to normal. The only difference is she slept a lot, today, probably due to yesterday's Benedryl. She's back to rolling the dog blanket into a wad and bouncing off the woodwork in her pit bull terrier mode.
    
  • We watched a doe cross the south lawn, near the apple trees, then stop for quite some time and eat clover in our driveway.
  • A quick check of the Antonovka apple trees I have in pots showed they were full of aphids. I brought them inside one at a time and Mary used Dawn/water spray and her fingers to remove them. I set the trees out in the near garden next to future potato plants and Mary watered the soap residue off the leaves.
    
  • Mary watered all garden plants. She saw several signs of rodents and even saw a vole looking at her. She distributed chocolate presents...generic Ex Lax.
    
  • I started the beetle-killing session off by nailing Japanese beetles that were on Porter's Perfection apple leaves. Mary finished it by killing hundreds that were on the apple and cherry trees. She noticed some leaves with a dozen on a single leaf, sometimes piled three or four high. She'd spray and the top beetles would fall off. Then, she'd return to spray the bottom layers of beetles. They're major defoliators.
    
  • I trimmed all vegetation from the 34 strawberry buckets and four tubs. The strawberry plants are old and failing to put on berries. Giant foxtail grass filled each container. I then moved all containers of soil to under the machine shed bench. I need to add soil amendments to all buckets and increase strawberry bucket numbers to 50 buckets for 50 new plants we'll order next spring. I'm discontinuing growing strawberries in tubs. They do better in four-gallon buckets. Thanks to cat litter we buy at Sam's Club, we own an abundance of these buckets. I moved the Antonovka trees to where the strawberry buckets once were located.
    
    
• Wednesday, 7/19: A Bunny Fortress
  
  • Mary blasted water down the hose we connect to the clothes washer we use as a drain. It was clogged full of lint. Clothes didn't come out as clean as desired on the last washing. Mary was concerned the washer was failing...not the case. She ran three small washes through without clothes and more material came out. This made her late getting to laundry. Three loads went out on the line, but didn't dry all the way on this very humid day.
    
  • I built an anti-bunny fortress in the south end of the far garden. I added an additional two feet of chicken wire, making for a four-foot high fence. It involved four steel posts and five fence stiffeners. I used an inch long nail to twist chicken fence wires every 4-5 inches to join the two pieces of two-foot high chicken wire together. I also pulled up chicken wire fencing all around that part of the garden. I've watched one particular pole vaulting bunny take a run at that fence and easily clear a scrunched down two-foot high chicken wire. Now that dastardly bunny is going to twang off the fence...ha, ha, ha!
    
  • Mary watered all garden plants.
    
  • A biplane crop duster worked a field east of us. This guy flew in from the east and didn't use the airport at the dairy, which is west of us. Obviously, there is competition in the works. Conditions were perfect with no wind, for administering herbicides. The other crop duster sprays in high winds and even with thunder clapping nearby. He's probably losing business, due to his poor practices. There's less aerial crop dusting this year. I'm seeing more signs of farmers working their own fields with sprayers pulled behind tractors.
    
  • Mary sprayed Japanese beetles while I finished evening chores. She almost hugged a doe deer at the blueberry bushes. She turned the corner at the end of the chicken run and there it was, right in front of her. Mary also watched a pair of yellow-crowned night-herons fly overhead after they were spooked from the south by our redneck neighbors at the house across the road shouting at each other.
    
    
• Thursday, 7/20: Mulching & Beetle Killing
  
  • A northwest breeze helped on a very hot day.
    
  • Mary mowed the east lawn between the house and the lane, putting mulch along the beans and on other plants that had bare ground surrounding them.
    
  • I nipped down persimmon trees in the far garden, then pulled up the rest of the chicken wire fencing to extend it to its fullest height. Sweet potato plants once chewed by our pole vaulting rabbit are coming back quickly.
    
  • I went into a combat beetle killing mode. Using a bucket filled with Dawn and water, I tapped Japanese beetle laden branches downward into the bucket, dropping hundreds of beetles to their death. By evening, fruit trees were mostly free of beetles. A multiflora rose at the electric fencer was loaded with beetles at sunset. Mary squirted them with Dawn/water solution.
  • Mary finished a shopping list for our trip to Quincy, tomorrow.
    
    
• Friday, 7/21: Shopping Trip
  
  • Quincy, IL, shopping highlights:
  • At Salvation Army, Mary got two jeans, two shirts and a book on the 1964 Alaska earthquake. I got two long-sleeve shirts.
  • I bought Carhartt suspenders and a Stihl trimmer double standard harness at Farm & Home.
  • We picked up a bunch of groceries between those two stops.
  •  After returning home, we emptied the pickup. Mary put food away.
    
  • When I opened the pickup's hood, the passenger hinge fell down and the hood wouldn't stay up. I used a stick to prop it open and found the bolt and nut that unscrewed and fell beneath the hood's hinge. I now need to figure out how to get it back in place, because the hinge spring is too strong to push it into place by hand.
  • Mary and I killed more Japanese beetles. There weren't as many on the apple trees, but they were thick on two cherry trees and on the same rose bush near the electric fence energizer.
    
    
• Saturday, 7/22: Pumpkin Wine's 3rd Racking
  
  • The west yard is full of catbirds every morning. They're probably a bunch of fledglings bathing in the morning dew and eating elderberries growing amongst the lilac bushes.
  • I racked the pumpkin wine for the third time. In a little over a month, quite a bit of fines settled out of the wine (see photos, below). The specific gravity was 0.995 and the pH was 3.5, exactly the same as a month ago. The alcohol level is 12.7 percent. It tasted harsh...too much of a strong alcoholic sulfuric fines taste. If that taste persists, I might have to run it through a tube filled with copper wool a month from now. The liquid went into a five-gallon carboy and a three-gallon carboy.
    
  • Mary finished the moon on a cross stitch project that shows a raven in front of a full moon.
    
  • We both watered garden plants.
    
  • We both killed Japanese beetles. Our sacrificial multiflora rose bush in front of the electric fence energizer is almost completely defoliated, but it makes for great beetle bait. Mary kills hundreds of these demons every evening as they fill that bush.

After 3rd racking of the pumpkin wine.

The leftover fines after pulling off the good stuff.

July 9-15, 2023

Weather | 7/9, 58°, 81° | 7/10, 56°, 85° | 7/11, 62°, 94° | 7/12, 0.04" rain, 68°, 85° | 7/13, 67°, 89° | 7/14, 1.08" rain, 63°, 93° | 7/15, 65°, 85° | 

• Sunday, 7/9: Chopping Chicken Yard Weeds
  
  • Today our chicks are one month old. We need to get them outside, so I took the Stihl trimmer with a steel blade and chopped down tall ragweed, aster plants, and grass in the north chicken run. As I was tossing tall ragweed over the north fence, Leo, our rooster, and half of the hens investigated the newly cut grass and weeds. I still need to take nippers to weeds growing through the gate. We'll try to get the chicks out tomorrow.
  • Mary picked blackberries all day. I helped by picking berries in the two patches filled with poison ivy, which involve the hollow west of the house and the thick patch on Bramble Hill. We added over five quarts of blackberries to the freezer. The grand total is 30.
  • Our mama deer with her two fawns visited the north and west lawns right after sunset. They liked the clover growing on places where we once piled weeping willow branches. As they moved to just west of the clothesline, I popped off the porch to watch them. The fawns stood and stared at me for a little while until I moved, then they dashed off to under the Kieffer pear tree and beyond.
    
    
• Monday, 7/10: Saddle-Shaped Fawn Spots
  
  • Mary watered and weeded all plants in both gardens. Watering took 90 minutes. Weeding involved the rest of the day. There was a lot to weed. Her next step is to add mulch that seems to be quickly disappearing.
    
  • It was my day for picking blackberries. Ripe blackberry numbers are dropping a little bit, but I still picked four very stuffed quarts for the freezer. Our grand total is 34 quarts of blackberries. I found a new berry patch at the west end of the west field.
    
  • Tick numbers are expanding, especially in berry patches located in open fields where deer and coyotes move through. Another tick hideout is the old metal Quonset huts that were once used as hog housing when Mary's Uncle Herman lived here. They are in the middle of Bramble Hill. Every return from berry picking involves searching clothing for ticks. At the end of the day, I had 46 ticks of various sizes stuck to a circle of packing tape...what a hideous site!
    
  • I chased two squirrels out of the McIntosh apple tree. I give up trying to defend that tree. It's in the wrong location. Surrounding trees allow squirrels to sneak in and out with ease.
  • A setting sun forced me to quit picking at Bramble Hill. Upon returning home, I spooked the doe with her twin fawns away from the base of the McIntosh tree. No doubt, they were eating green apples dropped by dastardly squirrels.
  • At the time I chased the deer away, Mary was watching them through binoculars from the house. She noticed that one fawn has a unique pattern of spots on it's back in the shape of a saddle.
    
    
• Tuesday, 7/11: So Hot!
  
  • It was extremely hot, today, which made outdoor activities harder to accomplish.
    
  • We watered all garden plants. They were slightly wilted, but looked good.
    
  • Mary picked blackberries between Bass and Dove Ponds, then picked berries in the southeast patch. It was too hot to get to all berry patches. She picked up the usual squadron of ticks, although it was even too hot for mass quantities of ticks.
    
  • I knocked out weeds that were growing through the gate between the south and north sections of the chicken run. Then, I added bricks along the fence and beyond that gate, where hens dug mortar holes while dusting. Finally, I opened the north chick door to let them free to the outside. After an hour, several poked their heads out the door. Finally, two chicks ventured out to the soil just below the door. This is a shy group of chicks.
    
  • I helped Mary pick blackberries by picking ripe berries at the big patch on Bramble Hill. Together, Mary and I picked four quarts today. We now have a total of 38 quarts in the freezer.
    
  • Mary encountered the doe, our pet lawn deer, but this time without her twin fawns. She wouldn't move until Mary finally got too close for comfort. Then, she rambled off.
  • Japanese beetles are mounding up on fruit tree leaves and munching them like they're eating potato chips. I nailed several beetles with Dawn/water spray at dusk that were on the Liberty apple tree and one of the smaller pie cherry trees. I see on Facebook where it's a common problem throughout the country right now for fruit tree growers.
    
  • Bill called. He's excited because he purchased a Celestron SkyMaster 20x80 binoculars via Amazon. We talked for over an hour.
  • It's fun keeping up with Margie and Alison, the travelers. Marjorie, my cousin, just finished visiting Ireland and is now in Finland. President Biden is visiting Helsinki today (7/12/23), where she is, and security is so tight, they even bolted down manhole covers. Alison, a Homer High School friend, is with her husband traveling from their home in South Carolina to Alaska. Today (7/12/23), they are on the Alaska Highway after entering the Yukon Territory.
    
    
• Wednesday, 7/12: A Tiny Bit of Rain
  
  • We received a little bit of rain in the morning and then again in the early afternoon. Mary photographed a rainbow on the edge of clouds (see photo, below). She saw it twice. We looked it up and it's named rainbow clouds, or fire rainbow. An online search indicates it's a rare event to witness and it's officially called a circumhorizon arch.
    
  • I drove to Quincy, IL, and picked up one of my meds, a couple food items, and powdered milk that we ordered a few days ago.
    
  • Back home, Mary picked blackberries in the south berry patch and between Bass and Dove Ponds. She noticed darkening clouds with increasing wind speeds. The moment she stepped inside the house upon returning from berry picking, there was a crack of thunder outside and a spattering of rain.
    
  • After I returned home, I opened the door for the chicks and about eight immediately came outside. They're getting a little braver.
    
  • I picked berries in the west field and the hollow near the house. I heard deer snort at me two times. I discovered several ripe berries hidden in head-high branches of small persimmon trees. We added three quarts for a grand total of 41 quarts in the freezer. Mary says that's enough for morning breakfasts for the next year. Now we pick for blackberry wine.
    
  • During evening chores, I witnessed a deer running away from me that was in east yard persimmons and walnut trees, a large rabbit in the south end of the far garden that easily bounded over our two-foot high chicken wire fence (DAMN!!!), and a fawn in the west yard near the blueberries.
  • I looked at last year's blackberry records. Based on numbers of bags versus weight to make the last blackberry wine, last year's average bag weight was 15 ounces. Measuring a few of this year's bags gave me an average of 19 ounces. To get 20 pounds of blackberries needed for five gallons of blackberry wine, we need 17 more bags. At 3-4 bags a day, we should reach that goal in five days. Then we let the birds and wildlife enjoy what's left in the spiny berry patches.
    
  • Mary and I enjoyed a bottle of pumpkin wine. The tart flavor is nice on ice after a hot day outside. So much for a fall/winter wine!

  

  A rare circumhorizon arch.

• Thursday, 7/13: Berry Picking Break on the Horizon
  
  • We watered the garden around midday. It perked up plants that were starting to wilt from the heat. A marauding rabbit is raising hell with sweet potato plants. The thought of rabbit stew is becoming more enticing.
  • Bean seeds have sprouted. They're still covered by old mesh curtains to keep birds from picking sprouts and carrying them away.
    
  • Mary and I both hit the blackberry picking detail. She got a full bowl out of the southeast patch and I got another full bowl from between the ponds and the major patch on Bramble Hill. Then, Mary got the rest of Bramble Hill and the north patch while I picked the west field, around Frog Pond, and in the hollow. Mary picked more berries between Bass and Dove Ponds, which proves a point we always suspected...that some berries ripen within two hours. That's an area I picked just two hours prior to Mary going through and picking, again. We put 4.5 quart bags in the freezer. I'm weighing them now, since we're now picking for wine and need 20 pounds for a five-gallon batch. Today, we picked six pounds. Fourteen more pounds of picked blackberries and we quit...YAHOO!!!
    
  • We identified bird's-foot trefoil growing on the trail to the north berry patch.
  • I picked tub-grown lettuce that we had for a salad. The leaves came from a two-foot stalk. This red sails lettuce variety tastes fine, even when it's bolting. The top leaves had a texture similar to kale. Mary added the last of this spring's radishes and snow peas to the salad.
    
    
• Friday, 7/14: Blackberry Picking Nearly Finished
  
  • The heat was intense. Garden plants were wilting when we added water to them. The added moisture helped. We were wilting after watering the gardens.
  • After cooling off inside, Mary and I went back out and picked more blackberries. Mary went southeast and south. I went northeast to between the ponds and Bramble Hill. We filled four more quart bags and have 10 pounds, 7.4 ounces of berries for winemaking, pushing us over the halfway mark for enough blackberries for five gallons of wine production. We hope to be done picking blackberries in two more days. There are still lots of red berries yet to turn ripe out there.
  • Mary watched a doe walk by while she was picking in the southeast blackberry patch. I heard a deer snorting at me while I was in the big berry patch on Bramble Hill.
  • Japanese beetles are everywhere. I killed several that were munching fruit tree leaves. They were especially thick on the Granny Smith apple tree.
  • Mary and I ate a green apple that fell from that tree. The seeds were white, so it wasn't ripe. It was tart, but had a distinct Granny Smith apple taste and much tastier than those we buy at Aldi.
  • Ominous clouds formed to the southwest as I finished evening chores. Then it really poured, giving us over an inch of rain in about 30 minutes...a welcome addition to much needed soil moisture.
    
    
• Saturday, 7/15: Seven Pounds of Berries
  
  • Mary and I hit the blackberry patches again and it's surprising how well they keep producing. We missed two patches, yet put away over five quarts in the freezer. Today's berry pickings weighed seven pounds, 2.5 ounces, for a total of 17 pounds, 9.9 ounces in winemaking blackberries. We're very close to finishing up the 20 pounds we need to make blackberry wine, then the birds, deer, and raccoons get the rest of the berries. Of course, ripe berries fall to the ground and grow into canes that produce berries in two years.
  • Smoke is back filling our air. The sky was hazy all day and we could occasionally smell the Canadian forest fire smoke. By evening, the sun grew redder and it finally disappeared on the western horizon behind a thick veil of smoke. The smoky outside air makes us cough occasionally and puts excessive amounts of tears in the eyes.
    
  • Mary saw a cardinal on a branch in the yard. Cardinals are very bright in regular light, but it was almost iridescent in smoke-filled daylight.
  • Mary handled the "Great Chick Escape," wishing I was helping her. Instead, I was finishing berry picking by topping off a bowl. Four chicks snuck under the fence between the north and south chicken yard gate and were in with the big hens and Leo, our rooster. Mary used a long stick to shoo them through the gate as she held up the bottom of the gate. "In other words, I did yoga," Mary explained.
    

July 2-8, 2023

Weather | 7/2, 1.28" rain, 67°, 81° | 7/3, 63°, 89° | 7/4, 67°, 92° | 7/5, 0.48" rain, 69°, 85° | 7/6, 60°, 76° | 7/7, 0.16" rain, 57°, 76° | 7/8, 60°, 77° | 

• Sunday, 7/2: Blackberry Picking in Full Swing
  
  • Mary handled the monthly bills and made a venison General Tso midday dinner.
  • She also walked around to all known berry patches on our property and picked blackberries. There is over a quart of berries in the freezer. Our main patch on Bramble Hill got too hot and dry. The plants are almost non-existent, there. We do have several red and turning ripe berries in other patches, though.
    
  • I used the tractor and smashed down berry picking paths while dumping fire blight branches below the Bass Pond dam.
    
  • I transplanted my three Antonovka apple rootstock trees into bigger pots. I retrieved the pots from the cow barn in the middle of our property.
    
  • We decided not to try to revive the strawberry plants that are looking terrible, due to intense heat and neglect. We'll buy new plants next spring.
  • I picked six green apples off the ground from under the Empire and Granny Smith apple trees. Strong winds came with the recent thunderstorms and knocked more apples to the ground.
    
  • Mary watched goldfinches trying to tear the middles out of blooming purple cone flowers.
  • With the large amount of overnight rain, we enjoyed another day free from watering gardens.
  • We watched the 2022 movie, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore.
    
    
• Monday, 7/3: Clipping Fire Blight & Picking Blackberries
  
  • I clipped fire blighted branches out of the Sargent crabapple tree. I also took one fire blighted branch out of the Granny Smith and Empire apple trees. Conditions must be perfect this year for the spread of that tree bacteria, because it's everywhere and plentiful.
  • Mary weeded peppers and melons in the far garden.
  • We saw a wood thrush hunting bugs in north lawn. It usually stays in the woods.
    
  • We both picked blackberries in the hot afternoon. Each blackberry search starts with a march to a patch at the far end of the north field, then between Bass and Dove Ponds, then Bramble Hill. Next we go to the west field, then Frog Pond, to the gully next to the woods and west of our house, then along the east side of the south woods. I took care of the gully, since it's filled with poison ivy, sometimes up to your chest. We filled two quarts, /We now have three in the freezer, which is not bad for two days of picking berries.
  • I picked 10 green apples off the ground underneath the Empire tree. I saw tiny deer tracks in the mulch. In an attempt to do something fast, I laid down flat strips of two-foot wide chicken wire surrounding that tree. Maybe walking on springy chicken wire will keep these fawns out from under the tree. Eventually, I need to install an electric fence. The Missouri Extension website highly recommends one strand of electric wire baited with four-inch squares of aluminum foil that are paper clipped to the wire with peanut butter applied to the inside of the folded foil. We've used it on big fences and know it works. Putting the peanut butter on the inside would save it from getting washed away by rain.
  • The two loads of clothes Mary washed and put out on the line dried very nicely in today's sun.
    
  • We tried a bottle of persimmon wine...YUCK, TOOWEE!!! It was three months old from bottling. The initial taste had hints of brown sugar, but additional sips gave me a feeling I was drinking whiskey. It wasn't good and hard to finish. We put part of the bottle in the fridge. I hope aging improves the taste. If not, this will not be a future wine to make.
  • No garden watering today, but that changes tomorrow with predicted heat into the lower 90s.
    
    
• Tuesday, 7/4: A Hot Fourth of July
  
  • Mary dusted Epsom salts and bone meal on squash, pumpkin, corn and some potato plants. Then, we watered all garden plants.
    
  • We picked blackberries, adding two and a quarter quarts to the freezer. The grand total is just over five quarts. Today, we divided up in order to pick fruit quicker.
  • I saw a monarch butterfly on a milkweed plant while picking berries. When we first arrived to this property in 2009, we saw lots of monarchs. Now, it's a rare event to see one.
    
  • Juan and Alma, our neighbors in the trailer across the gravel road from us, invited us to a party they are holding on July 6th to celebrate their daughter's first birthday.
  • Outside activities were tough in today's heat and humidity. Each time returning inside, we'd take our soaking wet clothes off, sit in front of the air conditioner, and drink huge quantities of cold iced tea.
    
  • I collected and wrote down my AM and PM glucose readings since April 1 in order to give them to my doctor during tomorrow morning's appointment.
  • We heard some Independence Day fireworks going off, but we stayed inside, instead of going out to view them. It's just too blasted hot!
    
    
• Wednesday, 7/5: Good Doctor Visit
  
  • Mary saw four deer in the west yard when she opened the living room curtains. Two does and two fawns were eating on vegetation. One was munching on the sweet cherry tree, so she waived the curtains. The deer stared and went back to eating. Then Mary knocked on the window glass. The deer stared at the demented woman. Then she opened the window and shouted, which made our dogs bark. The four deer shot out of the yard like they were pursued by demons from hell.
  • I checked the apple trees just south of the house and didn't see fallen apples under the trees. Obviously the chicken wire laying on the grass around the trees is working to keep deer from tearing apples out of the trees.
    
  • My visit to the Lewistown Clinic went well. My doctor likes my glucose numbers and is even concerned some of the readings are too low. The blood pressure check done by the nurse was a little high, at 148/78, so my doctor did a quick check and came up with better results of 110/75. That proves the blood pressure medication is working. If results from my blood and urine tests are good, my next visit is in six months. If the results are less than adequate, I return in three months.
    
  • I went blackberry picking while Mary watered the garden. There are a lot of big, ripe berries out there. I only received two hand wounds from blackberry brambles. I get into some weird yoga positions as I contort my body in and around berry plant spines to reach out and pluck berries. Move too fast and a spine will bite you real hard. Mary showed up midway through the big Bramble Hill berry patch, then started picking in the west field. I started near the Frog Pond until I was rained out. We put three quarts in the freezer, giving us a grand total eight.
  • We gained another half inch of rain which kicked on the sump pump for the first time in several weeks. The once deep cracks in our clay soil are disappearing.
    
    
• Thursday, 7/6: Great Medical News & Hispanic Party
  
  • The Lewistown Clinic nurse called this morning and gave me great news. My A1C is at 6.3, which is in the prediabetic range. This was a major drop from an A1C reading of 9.2 on Feb. 27th. My lipid levels were good, so the cholesterol medication is working. The nurse says Dr. Abueg is happy with the test results. I am to stay with the current medications and visit him in six months.
    
  • We picked a lot of blackberries and put six quarts into the freezer. Our grand total is 14 very stuffed quarts. We added a new spot to our picking routine, which is the southeast field. When I broke down a path to there with the tractor a few days ago, I didn't see berries, but they are showing now. We also found place where blackberry bushes expanded out across the field in that area.
    
  • We are finding lots of ticks and chiggers while berry picking. Mary had nine ticks on the back of her shirt after returning from one berry picking trip. I have about 12 chigger bites. I guess we need to bathe in bug spray.
    
  • In the late afternoon, while feeding pets, Mary spotted a buck deer in north yard, eating grass near the McIntosh apple tree. It had new antlers and one was about 15 inches long. The other antler was shorter. Obviously, deer antlers grow at different rates.
    
  • We attended Juan and Alma's party for their one-year old daughter. They are our neighbors across the gravel road. He works at the big dairy, about a mile west of us. Several Hispanic families attended. It was a crowd of about 35 people. They all spoke Spanish, although several also spoke English. Games they play are fun, especially when the kids whacked away at a piñata. They had three piñatas. A long cord tied to the piñata and looped over an oak tree branch was held by one of the fathers. He pulled it up and down as kids tried to smack it with a big stick. Everyone sang a specific song each time a designated child hit the piñata. At one point, a tall kid really swung hard and a mom yelled for the kids to stand back. She spoke in English at that point. It seemed as if a warning in English meant more to the kids than Spanish did. The night ended with an extremely (and I mean very extremely) sweet cake. I'm sure my blood glucose shot through the roof. It was fun. These people really know how to have fun. It's nice to go to a child's birthday party where you're offered a beer. It's a real family event. My only regret is that I don't know Spanish. If I did, I'd know what everyone was saying and singing.
    
    
• Friday, 7/7: Blackberries, Blackberries, & More Blackberries
  
  • I drove to Quincy for one of my meds, along with hen and dog food.
    
  • Mary picked blackberries while I was gone. She thought the south berry patch would produce very few, but she was wrong (see photo below). These berries are ripening each and every day.
    
  • I returned home to a thunderstorm. Lightning flashed to the west as I turned onto our driveway. We had a couple instant bangs after flashes of lightning. It resulted in a nice little rain.
    
  • We both went berry picking. I filled a medium stainless steel bowl. Today we put over five quarts into the freezer. It's a total of 19 quarts of this year's blackberries.
    
  • The number of ticks are unreal this summer. Mary disposed of 32 ticks she found on her clothing today. Anytime a dog goes outside, we have to do a thorough inspection. Wildlife must be filled with them.

  

  We picked several bowls of these blackberries.

• Saturday, 7/8: Last Planting & More Blackberries
  
  • Mary took a break from berry picking, weeded most of the near garden, and planted beans and some more potatoes. It's the last of garden planting until garlic goes in the ground in November. She also mowed what she needed to add mulch to the area where she put potatoes.
  • A baby hummingbird visited Mary while she worked in the garden. It would zing back and forth in U-shaped arcs in front of Mary. Finally, a larger hummingbird chased it away.
    
  • I went through the blackberry picking gulag again today. This year is turning out to be a great blackberry year. I added six more quarts to the freezer, giving us a grand total of 25. I ended the day at the big berry patch on Bramble Hill. There were ripe berries I didn't get, because my bowl was so full that berries were starting to fall out. The sun was close to setting when I called it a day. I didn't get to three patches.
  • I saw the buck I'm calling Long Horn Short Horn, who has a left antler longer than the right one. He ran off from the berry patch between Bass and Dove Ponds and stood at the entrance to the trail that goes down to the bottom of the Bass Pond dam and looked at me. When both sides of his antlers grow out, he will have a very nice rack.
  • We had relatively strong winds and the local crop duster was flying over our house while spraying fields with his poisons. His plane is without identification numbers on its wings. There are so many things wrong about how this guy operates.
  • We have a wood thrush that sits on the guide wire to the electric pole next to the house that chips at us, which probably means a nest is nearby, maybe in the cedar tree next to the woodshed. These birds are supposed to be timid, hiding in the timber. This one isn't shy at all.